Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SOCIAL LEGISLATION OF 1867, AND ITS NEW YEAR'S GIFTS FOR 1868. TO the memory of the ordinary observer, the chief Parliamentary session of 1867 appears as if tilled only with debates on the lleform Bill. Yet, in fact, few sessions have ever been more fruitful in measures of social importance; few will leave a deeper mark in the statute-book and in the lives of great masses of our countrymen. And if the mode in which the Reform Act was carried has indeed for the time loosened the political morality of the country, the beneficial character of an occasional shifting of political power from the one party to the other has, on the other hand, been excellently exemplified, outside of the political sphere, by the passing of such measures as those above referred to, which in ordinary times could never have left the hands of a Liberal ministry without some impairing of their fulness, some narrowing of their scope. The very ideal condition of things for the useful exercise of the legislative power has, in short, been realized—that of the one party proposing what could not be opposed by the other. The beginning of a New Year seems a peculiarly fitting period for a retrospect over the more prominent features of the social legislation of 1867, inasmuch as many of the measures which deserve to be singled out take effect only on the 1st January, 1868. Some indeed are at work already, more particularly the Poor Law group. Mr. Hardy's excellent " Metropolitan Poor Act, 1807," came intooperation, for the most part, from its date (29th March, 1867); as to some clauses, from last Michaelmas Day. Four momentous reforms are introduced by it:—1st, The creation of asylums for the reception and relief of the sick, insane, and infirm poor, and the application thereto of the district system, al... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.